Stoner concedes defeat in title chase

Stoner concedes defeat in title chase

Casey Stoner has admitted that his chances of winning the 125cc World Championship are ‘destroyed' after his second lap crash in the Gauloises Grand Prix Ceske Republiky on Sunday. After missing the previous two rounds through injury, Stoner was desperately chasing breakaway leader Andrea Dovizioso to try and prevent a repeat of the Italian's clear victory four weeks previously at Donington Park.

However, the Australian youngster acknowledged that he was perhaps pushing a little too hard when he lost control of his KTM, a mistake which would eventually leave him 79 points adrift of the Italian in the championship with a maximum 150 left play for.
"It showed on the telemetry that I didn't go into that corner any harder than the lap before and I had crashed in the warm-up in a similar way – the front went without any warning," said the 18 year old.
"It was quite strange and another little bit of bad luck. I could have been pushing a bit hard but I felt comfortable. It's just disappointing. The fact I didn't hurt myself almost makes it more annoying – it was just the smallest crash ever!
"It's disheartened me a little bit because the season really is destroyed now so I'm just going to have to see what I can scramble back for the top three positions now. Even then those positions will be hard. Locatelli pulled another 16 points so it's going to be really hard to get in the top three now."